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As I grew up in an Iowa town, we were all pretty much the same.  All white though sunburned, all with jobs, no one in any danger. 

Not everyone went to church but you were talked about if you mowed your lawn on Sunday. No teen sex either—girls went away to visit their aunts for a year. The Methodist preacher known as Pups (he raised dogs) denied the virgin birth but that was something for gossip not outrage. It took a while for me to hear the gospel there, but then we got a new preacher. 

I think of that as I read Reformed Means Missional now (ed. Samuel Logan, New Growth Press). Sorry I keep going into teacher mode, assigning books to read—but you really should do this one, a true wakeup call.  The book touches on what we all know, collapsing churches, secularized culture, but that’s not the point.  It’s not about what isn’t happening but what is, among groups very unfamiliar to me.  Poor inner-city Latinos hearing the gospel in a health clinic where they pray with you, can you imagine? Women in Africa, raped again and again, finding hope in Jesus.  Apartheid country full of trans-racial love.

What’s happening anyway? The people like respectable me have no interest in Jesus, but the losers do. Think about this: one gospel says, blessed are the poor in spirit, while another just says, blessed are the poor. What kind of connect is that, do you think?  ‘Missional’ is one of those trendy words, has to be in the church bulletin but no one has a clue what it means.  But as you read this book you’ll begin to get it.  What it means is, find the people who are really needy for Jesus and his love, that’s your mission, and then care for them with all you have, and more.

I’ve know some ‘sociology of religion,’ invented a century ago by Ernst Troeltsch.  In America that means: rich people are Episcopalian, almost rich Presbyterian, in the middle Methodists and Baptists, at the bottom Pentecostals. What would it take for Presbyterians to move into Pentecostal turf, do you think? We deny with all our hearts that the gospel is only for people like us, but how can we put feet on that conviction? Jay Adams said, exegete the text and exegete the people--but could he really have meant, those people? 

Why should that book title be, Reformed Means Missional?  Reformed people think that the Lord wants us to keep on learning from the Word. When Lutherans said, we’ve got it nailed, everything is justification, then we said, we’re with you on justification but we’re working ahead on sanctification. When some talked about the ‘spirituality of the church,’ then Abraham Kuyper worked ahead in Amsterdam and was sure Christians had to figure out educational opportunity for people of all faiths, and whether there could be a Christian way in between capitalism and socialism.  My John Murray was sure we needed to reopen our hearts to think about union with Christ. It can sound arrogant, but if you’re Reformed, you have to be constantly open to learn what the Bible says--even to today’s radical stuff, like how does the gospel work with abused children, raped women and starving everyone?

That takes more than a mind open to the Bible.  It takes deep down humility, doesn’t it? It’s possible to be godly and biblical and solidly Reformed—and be proud of it.  It’s too easy to be the people that Jesus said he hadn’t come to call.

This is the biggest thing I’ve been learning from Reformed Means Missional, expressed by almost all of the writers.  When you’re pushed to speak the gospel into a culture which is unfamiliar to you--then you see things that you never saw before and would never have seen anyway.  The need pushes you to look more vigorously into the Word, and then the Word pushes you to see the need more deeply. Solid growth in faith and love, no matter how it happens.

The part that resonates with me the most is the one by Susan Post of Esperanza.  She takes the biblical theological thing, that God has a story that he keeps unfolding, the story of the Bible from beginning to end—and she says that’s what’s happening now in Philadelphia!  Biblical theology is so beautiful and faith-building, the Lord has more and more grace for us.  But I never thought of looking in that hard place in Philly for that.  But Susan sees it and helps me see it too, so all of us can see it.  There is gospel hope for that place, and joy together, not just in Esperanza but in the Jesus around Esperanza.  In this darkening world, we see the brightening Glory.  Gogoniant! 

This book is startling and stretching and faith-building.  How we live, what we do, makes a difference.  Had you started to wonder about that?  To think of the Risen Savior as just a symbol, not a reality?  This book will change that.  Remember the Van Til thing, the paradox of the full bucket?  The bucket is already full of the Glory of God, isn’t it?  How could there be more Glory added to it?  I think I know the answer, finally.  How is the wrong question.  Is is the right one - Is the Glory being added to all the Glory God has shown us before?  Now open your eyes wide as you look into the hardest places there are, and rejoice in Lord’s people loving him and the people there.

D. Clair Davis
Professor and Chaplain
Redeemer Seminary, Dallas
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Tags: Reformed Missional Jesus Sam Logan Susan Post Esperanza New Growth Press faith love Translate